Your Gateway to the Trends and Tropes of the Horror Genre

Horror Infographics: The Top 100 Horror Movies By the Numbers

Where did our favorite Horror Films come from? How did we generate the points? What genres did we like? What does the timeline look like? Well, have a peek at some cool graphics we put together and find out!

We promised you the big list of ALL the movies in our top 100 list, and here it is! All 312 films. I know Mike has been saying 326… but as is the case for many things in The Scariest Things, the math is a flexible thing. We analyzed the information we got back, and not only did we do an assessment of what our favorite movies are (that was the whole point, right?) but we also have been able to figure out:

The images on this page give you an idea of what it looks like, but you can sift and sort through all the charts on the Tableau Public page where the site is. Use the

Where do our favorite horror movies come from?

We have a surprisingly strong showing of foreign horror films. Nothing yet from Africa, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we start getting more favorite films from places like Iran and India before too long… and China being as movie crazy as it is, and driving the world box office will certainly start providing movies in the near future.

When were our favorite horror movies made?

When you look at the full 312 movie run, we have an uninterrupted period from 1960 until now that has at least one favorite horror movie in it. Now, not every year has a top 100 film, but it does show the durability of the genre. Even the 90’s which we rag on quite a bit, had some pretty good showings. In ten years I will be very interested to see if the current trends of great horror movies holds.

What sub-genres do we like the most?

I gave each film TWO primary sub-genre characteristics. Most of the time there were easy tropes. Sean of the Dead, for example is both COMEDY and ZOMBIE. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is HILLBILLY and CANNIBAL. And according to our jury, our favorite films are Ghost stories (39), Monster Movies (32), and Thrillers (31). You can hover over each sub-genre to get a count. I’m working at getting the multiple count data to list the titles of the films within the sub-genre.

Who voted for which films, and which member of the jury is most like you.

If you wanted to see how the jury made their picks, and how the BIG LIST got established, here’s the voting. Don’t forget, you can also see the individual ballots, and all the Podcasts HERE. There’s a flavor for everybody! And you can see how many ballots each movie got picked on. Even the top five movies weren’t consensus films. The Shining, for example, did not show up on 10 jury ballots, and it still finished 2nd. And, we rewarded the passion projects… films like Spooky Encounters, Goodnight Mommy,Santa Sangre, and Blue Velvet would not have made it to the big list, if not for the amount of love that a few voters had for those films.

So… who, what, where, and when. If you want to know the WHY… listen to the podcast! And again, go click on the link for the interactive menus. If there is anything else you want us to break down for you from our data, we’d love to know… and we can try to get you more fun information based upon the big list.

I hope you enjoy this information as it was for us to sift through it. And here’s to you all having a scary, but safe Halloween!